From kendrick@io.com Thu Nov 23 09:17:10 CST 1995
Article: 26731 of alt.toys.transformers
Path: news.io.com!io.com!not-for-mail
From: kendrick@io.com (Kendrick Kerwin Chua)
Newsgroups: alt.toys.transformers
Subject: TF Weekday 11/23 - The Rebirth Part I
Date: 23 Nov 1995 09:16:54 -0600
Organization: Illuminati Online
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Status: RO
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TF Weekday Nov 23 1995 - The Rebirth Part I

The EI/AD: The Plasma Energy Chamber Key is a family heirloom that Autobot
leaders are supposed to guard with their lives, so Optimus Prime keeps it
in the Metroplex closet... The corkscrew which opens up the foundry where
the Autobots were built is this episode's alien device...

The plot: After months and months of inactivity, every known Decepticon
attacks Metroplex as part of a diversion to steal the PEC Key. On
Cybertron, Hot Rod and Blurr race in 'The Maze' and Hot Rod wins with
Daniel's help, corroborating Brainstorm's theory about secondary
operators. The Decepticons land and attack again, while Scourge goes 12
levels below generator Z into the Plasma Energy Chamber. 12 Autobots,
Spike and Daniel follow him down in a ship. Scourge activates the chamber
ony to be shorted out. Cerebros and Spike retrieve the key and run back to
the ship, only to have their engines overloaded, sending them on a
high-speed one-way trip to nowhere. They crash-land on Nebulos and are
captured by the natives, only to have been followed by 10 Decepticons sent
by an extremely displeased Galvatron. The Decepticons capture Hot Rod,
Kup, Blurr, Sureshot, Crosshairs and Pointblank. Daniel is injured by
Snapdragon. The remaining Autobots decide to team up with the Nebulans,
led by Gort, to fight the Decepticons and the Hive, the evil government of
Nebulos. All except for Cerebros, who is sick of the war. Arcee, Highbrow,
Hardhead, Chromedome and Brainstorm detach their heads and prepare for
binary bonding. To be continued...

The characters: What a toy commercial. Check out cameo appearances by
Flywheels (in the show intro) the Throttlebots (who all get token
one-liners) The Clones (Pounce and Wingspan, who steal the key, and
Cloudraker and Fastlane, who go looking for it) Punch/Counter-punch and
Six-shot. At least the soon-to-be-Headmasters get in a little bit of
characterization. Brainstorm is obviously the brains of the team, and
Hardhead gets to be stubborn and diffident. Highbrow's vocabulary is nice
and pompous. Apeface, Snapdragon, and Mindwipe all have Russian accents,
for some strange reason... Maybe they didn't want to develop their
characters? At least Whippy gets to use his hypno-powers on Lightspeed.
The Nebulans are surprisingly well done, if unoriginal... I can't count
the number of science fiction premises built on an ecosystem controlled
by rogue robots or by machines controlled by a malevolent intelligence...
Can we say Star Trek, anybody? We'll save the rest for next review...

The plot holes: Prime didn't seem to be guarding the key with his life,
we've already covered that. When Chromedome asks Duros what planet they're
on, he replies 'Nebulan.' However, all subsequent references to the planet
refer to it as 'Nebulos.' Chalk one up for the continuity problem board.
Firebolt tells Gort that he's amazed there's a human with the big giant
Autobots. Where in the hell did the Nebulans ever hear of humans to begin
with? The flashbacks and the current look at the state of affairs on
Nebulos doesn't indicate any trade or space travel of any kind. Silly
scene where Counter-Punch is spying on the Con Clones, then says his
Autobot counterpart is nearby... Geez, with those kinds of double-agents
it's a wonder why the Decepticons don't stick to Laserbeak for their
intelligence reports. 100 blips constitutes every Decepticon they know of,
right? And Kup can talk about the old days where an Autobot platoon
consists of 700 robots? Something is definitely wrong with the books
here... Oh yeah, and Roger C. Carmel is deceased at this point. Jack
Angel has been doing Cyclonus' voice ever since 'The Return of Optimus
Prime.'

Moving Pictures: Whoa! Check out that big list of Korean animators! Yes
friends, this is the same team that gave us 'City of Steel' and similar
episodes, as evidenced by the small eyes and thin lines in most of the
character designs. All things considered though, the animation isn't half
bad. The Maze sequence is quick and smooth, and the cuts into Hot Rod's
passenger compartment aren't too jarring. Nice shots of Decepticon faces,
big and close-up and personal... Mindwipe and Scourge are especially
creepy and expressive. Too bad we couldn't have the kind of animation
they used in the intro segment; for those of you keeping track, they used
footage from the commercials for our new intro. Targetmaster and Duocon
commercials were chopped up and spliced in rather haphazardly.

The cuts: A lot of scenes where Autobots were getting shot down were cut
out, making it seem like they took fewer losses than they did. It kind of
ruins the effect of the Decepticons having every advantage for a change.

Toys they should re-issue: Saved for the last review...

Quotables:
"Prepare for crash landing!"
"How? By thinking happy thoughts?"
"That'd help!"

"This reminds me of the time my platoon was stranded on Regulan IV. There
were only 700 of us up against three whole Regulan metal-mongers."
"700 of you against three of them? Oh, come on!"
"You ever seen a Regulan metal-monger, lad?... Trust me, we were
outnumbered."

"It seems like the only meritorious solution to a meritricious situation."
"Yeah, right, what he said."

"Remember, tinfoil can't talk..."

KKC, Hey Don! Send me the Japanese Headmasters series! Come Monday I'm
out of things to review! :)
--
Kendrick Kerwin Chua - "Oh the bubbles, they tickle my - *GASP* Tchaikovsky!"
kendrick@io.com - WTB: 1980s Transformers, US and Japanese, and GIJoe figures
Necronomcon FAQ home page at http://www.io.com/~kendrick/necronomicon or anon
FTP at io.com:/pub/usr/kendrick -Personal home at http://www.io.com/~kendrick